Looks like artist music is going to start becoming exclusive to specific brands, as it has been made public through Activision PR that all Aerosmith tracks are going to be exclusive to Guitar Hero. What this means is that, no matter how good the Rock Band Store gets (and it is very good), you will never see any more Aerosmith tracks appearing in that franchise. Sure, Rock Band owners do get one Aerosmith track, that being “Train Kept a Rollin,” but seriously, that is just a drop in the bucket.

What we are wondering is, as these music/rhythm-based games continue to flourish, how many other artists are going to sign on for the exclusive? What do you guys think?

Advertisement

Some questions were asked after Rockstar announced that it had adjusted the content of its violent horror title Manhunt 2 to warrant an M rating from the ESRB rather than the unsellable AO it had previously been given. California Senator Leland Yee was one person asking such questions.

Since much of the public’s information about the original content in Manhunt 2 came from IGN’s Matt Casamassina’s hands-on with the game prior to rating, it’s only fitting that he plays the modified version heading to retail and reports on what the differences are.

Primarily, Casamassina says, the game has taken the controversial murder animations and added some blur and darkening effects to obfuscate the actions, making the action less identifyable. Casamassina is disappointed with the changes:

[It’s] unfortunate because both everything else is unchanged and because these death strikes are what gamers will want to work toward; they’re the pay off for a job well done, but now the pay off is not nearly as rewarding.

It’s worth noting that one maneuver in which the player removes an enemy’s testicles with a pair of pliers has been completely excised from the game, but aside from these adjustments the game is still extremely dark and graphically violent according to Casamassina’s estimation.

After finally agreeing to grant the embattled Rockstar title Manhunt 2 a retail-friendly Mature rating, the ESRB is drawing some fire from California senator Leland Yee. Yee, best known for his failed 2005 video game legislation, is questioning what changed to entice the ESRB’s about-face. In a statement he says, “The ESRB refuses to use the AO rating for violence despite the descriptor calling for such a rating when there are ‘graphic depictions of violence.’ If Manhunt doesn’t qualify, what would?”

Somewhat surprisingly, Yee does have a valid question. It does seem like game publishers ought not to be under the typical pre-release scrutiny for something as inconsequential as ratings determination, but is there any reason why the ESRB can’t be forthcoming with specifics about how and why it comes to its conclusions?

First, Silicon Knights sued Epic Games, alleging that Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 had done “serious damage” to SK’s long-delayed Too Human. Later, Epic fired back with a countersuit, in which Epic claimed that Silicon Knights wanted to use the engine without paying for it.

Now, longtime Epic partner Digital Extremes, in the middle of development of its similarly delayed Dark Sector project, has come forth with its own complaints. Game director Steve Sinclair explained, “A lot of promises were made about the Unreal III engine, particularly on PS3. But as we see now, the time frames haven’t been met and now a lot of games using it are being held up.”

Now that two developers are on the record about problems with Unreal Engine 3, we wouldn’t be surprised to see loads of developers come out of the woodwork with similar grievances, both real and imagined. The situation is likely to become ugly really soon.

Yes, 100 percent less Andy this episode, as he’s in L.A. for a CoD4 event. Instead, Edie and Hawkes cover the week’s gaming news and go off on wild tangents. On the plus side, this episode may be Andy-free, but it has 100 percent MORE of Hawkes’ cat.

Topics discussed:

- The unusually large amount of games released this week, including The Darkness and The Bigs.

- Toys ‘R Us is holding a 3-for-2 sale on Nintendo DS games until this Saturday. U Bai Now!

- Square Enix says on one hand that it’s not releasing any games for PS3 until April 2008 at the very earliest. Then it says, baby, I’m sorry. The PS3 really is the only console it could ever love. Why does watching these two feel like family-night at Ike and Tina Turner’s place.

- A group of psychologists want to label video games as an addictive substance. Someone’s been sucking on the lead popsicles again….

- Larry Flint had hoped to fire the entire staff of Tips and Tricks magazine while they were all at E3. Too bad he fired the freelancers a week early and they told the staff. Don’t you hate when being a nice guy blows a really great evil plan? And isn’t it ironic that the guy who built his empire on other people s*cking c*ocks turns out to the the biggest c*cks*ucker of them all?

- Shadowrun for Vista has been cracked to run on XP. And there was much rejoicing. (yaaay!)

- Lyndon LaRouch, notorious conspiracy theorist and gay hater, and his merry band of crazy geezers are ticked because the final report on the Virginia Tech massacre doesn’t mention video games—despite the fact there’s been no evidence the shooter ever played games. LaRouch figures it’s… wait for it… A CONSPIRACY!!Ed. Note: Edie apologizes to for mistaking LaRouche as a guy who was notorious for anti-gay legislation. Actually, he is the freak who tried to get anti-gay legislation passed by California voters back in the 1980s that would have quarentined gays to prevent AIDS. I knew he smelled crazy…

- The 100th episode of Red vs. Blue! Gratz, guys!

Off-topic hits include Paris Hilton, porn (again), the iPhone, how to properly prepare for a night of binge drinking, Andy’s impending move, and… did we mention Hawkes’ cat?

If you want to hear it? Go get subscibe on iTunes already… ya slacker.

It’s a veritable cornucopia of co-hosts, as Andy, Hawkes, Edie and Steve519 (from XBLRadio) initially intend to talk up this week’s gaming news but instead delve deep into what we think is a growing plague on the landscape of podcasting: Corporate Lapdoggery. Yes, this is the episode where we pretty much rip apart Microsoft’s MVP program and pretty much expect we’ll be banned from all Microsoft events from now on.

We didn’t want to do it, but it had to be done. What can I say, kids, after months and months of everyone thinking it, someone had to pipe up and say the emperor has no clothes.

Just be warned, we’ll say a lot of stuff that will make us enemies, but we believe we are firmly on the side of truth, fairness, and the open exchange of information. We believe that you should be able to trust podcasts—any podcast—as much as you trust your local newspaper. Is that too much to ask? And even though we’ll probably take a lot of heat for this, we’d rather be dead right than alive and wrong.

AND!! There’s a contest for Halo2 and Shadowrun for Vista and Stalker for the PC (XP or Vista). Just listen before the first break and the end of the show to find out how to win!

Add some more fuel to the ethics in video games fire… Remember those somewhat subversive DS advertisers in your local mall? The ones that consisted of cute girls wearing shirts proclaiming that “Touching is Good”? Well, the DS has just taken the pervyness to the next level, courtesy of SNK. In a new Japan-only game Doji Doji Majo Saiban (roughly translated as Exciting Witch Trial) you’re encouraged to find out whether or well-endowed nubile girls are witches or not. We’ll let you guess how you find out… or you could click this link(somewhat NSFW) and skip some of the guesswork.

We can only guess that this game is NEVER going to make it stateside… I think several public interest groups’ collective heads would explode. So all you folks interested in the “artistic style” and “dialog” in this game are going to be stuck importing and learning Japanese for now.

It seems to be the new norm in consumer electronics manufacturing - if you start to make money off of a good idea, you’d better stockpile lawyers and money to defend it against patent lawsuits. First Creative vs. the iPod, then Immersion vs. PS3 Rumble, now this. Interlink electronics, creator of those pointers businessfolk use for corporate presentations, is suing Nintendo over the Wiimote and its use of a trigger button, claiming that that Nintendo is infringing on their patent #6,850,221 “Trigger Operated Electronic Device”.

Granted, I’m a bit biased, but it seems to me that there’s absolutely no merit in their claim. Here’s the timeline of events, just to keep things straight:

September 29, 1996 - Nintendo releases the N-64, featuring a 3-pronged controller with the infamous Z-trigger underneath the anolog stick. Nintendo goes on to sell 32 million consoles worldwide

February 2005 - Interlink is granted patent for a device that bears resemblance to the Wiimote (see figure at right), including a remote-style shape and a trigger on the underside of the device.

September 2005 - Nintendo unveils the Wiimote at the Tokyo Games Show

Given that Interlink had no plans to get into the gaming world, and that Nintendo had been using trigger-style technology before Interlink even filed their patent, I find it hard to believe that this case has any leg to stand on.

It took less than 24 hours, and now gamers the world ‘round to have a place to vent their PS3 frustrations in Photoshop form. Parodying the marketing slogan for the PlayStation 3, “This is Living”, ThisIsWaiting.com gives users the ability to upload their own anti-Sony images and have them appear on the front page.

It should be noted that the owners of ThisIsWaiting.com appear to also own the wii60.com domain, which has been encouraging users for a while to get a Wii and Xbox 360 for the price of a PS3. So, obviously, these folks are a bit biased. Still, there’s some hilarity to be seen on the frontpage, and some creative venting of anger.